In many microwave and millimeter (mm)-wave radio applications, power measurement is necessary. Conventional radio frequency (RF) power detectors include a directional coupler, a detector diode, and a termination resistor. The conventional power detector is integrated at the output RF port of a power amplifier on a monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC). In this configuration, the conventional directional coupler based power detector needs an additional coupling line after a power combiner. The addition of the power detector and coupling line increases the circuit size and adds insertion loss. As a result, with the conventional technique, an increase in MMIC die size is an inevitable issue and additional cost cannot be avoided.
It would be desirable to implement a compact dual diode RF power detector for integrated power amplifiers.